The Database

EU KLEMS projectThe EU KLEMS project aimed at creating a database on measures of economic growth, productivity, employment creation, capital formation and technological change at the industry level for all European Union member states from 1970 onwards. The database will provide an important input to policy evaluation, in particular for the assessment of the goals concerning competitiveness and economic growth potential as established by the Lisbon and Barcelona summit goals.

The input measures include various categories of capital, labour, energy, material and service inputs. Productivity measures have also been developed, in particular with growth accounting techniques. Several measures on knowledge creation have also been constructed.

PurposeThe EU KLEMS Database can be used for analytical and policy-related purposes, in particular by studying the relationship between skill formation, technological progress and innovation on the one hand, and productivity, on the other. To facilitate this type of analysis a link will has been sought with existing micro (firm level) databases. The balance in academic, statistical and policy input in this project was realised by the participation of 15 organisations from across the EU, representing a mix of academic institutions and national economic policy research institutes and with the support from various statistical offices and the OECD.